He was not in any ways connected with the Benue Community Concord – the weekly newspaper of reference in Benue State between 1989 and 1990. But a staff of the newspaper was his friend. That informally connected him to the Benue Community Concord. It was such that he often came to the office and his house was a regular port of call by a duo in the newspaper.
He didn’t seem to be keen on anything else other than a career in the Nigeria Police. That remained strange. With a father who was a household name around the state arising from, among others, his ownership of Padopads Harmony Secondary School in Makurdi and with a degree in Philosophy (or was it in Mass Communications?) from the University of Lagos, Don as he came to be known and called by almost all was expected to aim at either politics, business or diplomacy. But none of that appealed to him.
It is not surprising that he made his mark, rising to the rank of an Assistant Inspector-General of Police. Intervention has not met him for a long time now but it is doubtful if he changed from ever being the student of Philosophy. He would have been the most amiable and perhaps most friendly IGP ever if he made it. And that was the expectation.
Hence the tragedy in the announcement of his death after a brief illness at an Abuja hospital early Monday morning, (May 23rd, 2022). The Nigeria Police will miss him the most. He made a deliberate choice of a career in the Police in spite of alternative opportunities that were open to him.
His death is a very unkind cut! A classic of gone too soon, without suggesting that God loved him any less! May he find his way to Heaven!
